Size isn't everything
by Lady of the Lost and Found
Summary: This is a true story. I'm writing this to let you all know about what is really going on with the Autobots. Sure you've seen the films and watched the shows, but ever given the toys any thought? The Autobots are real, they're everywhere and they're small.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello Sportsfans!**

**The idea for this story actually came to me when I bought my new Ironhide action figure a few days ago. I love the old guy who oddly enough reminds me of my father. Cannons and all. I really hope you enjoy the story because I'll be writing it as it actually happens. After all, this is a true story...sort of. **

**Happy Reading**

* * *

This is a true story. 

No honestly, it is. I swear to you that everything that I'm typing actually did happen.

Okay yeah I know it's gonna sound a little hard to believe but I wouldn't be writing this if it didn't happen. So before you turn off your computer or commit me to the funny farm or run away screaming, just keep your mind open and remember that you are not listening to a crazy person. Hey you never know, maybe this same thing happened to you. Or maybe someone else you know. I'm sure that I'm not the only one on this planet to have been held at gunpoint by a seriously confused Autobot that also happens to be a Hasbro collectable.

That's right. You read that correctly. I said Hasbro. You know, that toy company that's been manufacturing Transformer toys for over twenty years? Yeah that one.

Hey….where are you going? I told you to keep an open mind! Will you just sit and listen to me for a few more minutes. Please? It's not going to kill you or anything. I'm the one that has to deal with an overly temperamental weapons specialist and a kamikaze plastic jetfighter that is hell-bent on destroying "human scum." You know if he wasn't a foot tall I would have shipped myself off into the witness protection program and would be living in Alaska right now but I'm getting away ahead of myself.

Okay, so let me start from the beginning cause yeah, you know the beginning is always the best place to start.

Right, so here goes nothing. And remember…._THIS DID HAPPEN!_

And here we go.

It all started on the night when I was supposed to be writing my second massive term paper. For the past week I had been procrastinating my little heart out, doing absolutely nothing and enjoying every minute of it. But I'm not in the fourth year of my undergraduate degree for nothing and sooner or later I had to get started on the monsters that are term papers. Remember kids, procrastinating will not get your essays done. Only you can get essays done and no matter how hard you wish, pray and dream that magically your assignments will become asexual and do themselves, it ain't ever gonna happen.

So, I was sitting there at my computer, chewing on the tip of my tongue and wondering how the hell I was going to start that 10 page research monstrosity. It could have been worse you know. It could have been 20 pages. I had one of those mothers last semester and I ended up living in my own filth for a week as I tried to write that thing. It wasn't pretty.

Anyways, I was sitting there doing dick all while time kept running out on me like a bad case of tropical diarrhea. I had two days in which to complete this essay because since I left it to the last minute, I not only had this one to do, but also another ten pager due a day after the first one was due. University sucks major donkey balls but that's nothing new. While I was debating whether or not to touch my keyboard I had my new Transformers score playing on my stereo. God that music is great. Listening to it gave me this great idea that I could use to waste even more time and it was so good that I couldn't help but follow through with it. I grabbed the keys to my mother's monster SUV that I have happily dubbed the Vininator because it's built and actually kind of looks like Vin Diesel, and ran out of the house before my mother could ask me where I was going.

I was going to go for a drive. Just around a few blocks so that I could clear my head while listening to some music as loud as I wanted without having my mother's shrieking voice telling me off for playing it so loud. I figured why the hell not? I was in no mood to start writing so an extra half an hour of slacking wasn't going to hurt. So off I go, peeling out of my driveway like Han Solo going to light speed, and luckily I remembered to bring my Transformers soundtrack along because the sound system in the Vin is simply out of this world. So I pop in the cd, fiddle with the bass until car is vibrating with the cellos and off I go, driving along on my merry way without a clue as to where I was going. I was driving for the hell of it and it felt good.

Now this is when things started to go a little weird. I didn't have a preset destination in mind but ten minutes later I found myself sitting in the parking lot of my local Toys R Us. How weird is that? I had no intention of going to a toy store. I'm a 22 year old stressed out University student not some 6 year old spawn of Satan so why the hell was I sitting in that damn parking lot? I don't know! I honestly don't have a clue as to what I was doing there. But it gets even weirder. Oh yeah.

I got out of the car.

I dunno why I did but it was like there was some strange invisible tractor beam that was pulling me into the store and the next thing I know I was standing awe-struck in front of the massive, and I mean massive, Transformers display. It was huge! I've never seen so many Hasbro toys in one place before. They even had a television that was playing the Transformers movie.

"Whoa." I remember saying that because I sounded like Neo for a moment.

I gave the entire display a critical once over to see if there was anything interesting on sale. The thing was, besides the tiny Bumblebee collectables you could get for an insane amount of money, all of the toys there were all Decepticons or a few Autobots that never made it into the film.

Now if they had the Optimus Prime transformer then I would have bought that sucker faster than you can say "Holy Crap Batman" but just my luck they were sold out. But it wasn't just him. Oh no. There were out of Bumblebee, Jazz, Ratchet and Ironhide. Typical huh? All of the cool guys are already taken and you're left with the scraps.

"Excuse me, do you have any of the Autobot transformer toys in the back?" I asked a passing sales person before he could bolt. The store was dead but still no one wanted to help me. Gotta love retail.

"Huh…I dunno." He had this glazed look to his face as if the hamster in his head had died and the wheel was turning on its own.

"Ummm, would it be possible if you could go check for me? Please?" I had my best pity look on but he still remained phased.

"Huh….sure." He turned around and trudged off as if I had sent him to face his death in front of a firing squad or something. But at least he had gone to check. Or at least I think he did because I never saw him again. Maybe he got lost in the back room and couldn't find his way out. Or maybe a huge stack of boxes collapsed on top of his head and to this day he is still trying to dig himself free. I don't know. What I do know is that I waited for a good ten minutes and when he hadn't come back I decided to leave. I still had a paper to write.

"_You feelin' lucky, punk?_"

"Excuse me?" I was ready to backhand however it was that was growling in my ear but when I turned around there was no one behind me. The entire aisle was empty with the exception of myself and the Transformers display. Great, now I was hearing voices.

"H'oooookay." I just rolled my eyes and looked down to see that my shoe was untied. Putting safety first I bent over and retied the laces.

"_Just kidding. I just wanted to show you my cannons._"

There was that damn voice again!

"What?" I half-spun on my knees and brought my arms up to do some weird kung-fu karate chop to the guy's knees but instead of seeing those said knees I was face to face with a bunch of Decepticon toys that were sitting idly on the shelf.

"Um hello?" I looked high and low, up and down the aisle but once again I just ended proving to myself that the place was deserted. The girl up at the cash gave me this weird look before she went back to filing her nails and that was about it for human contact. I went back to the Transformers wall and looked at it carefully. And then it hit me. The movie was playing! NARF!

"Smart one Sarah." Here I was thinking that I was about to get butt raped by some big Texan in the middle of a toy store when the voice had been coming from the television the entire time. On the small screen Optimus was beating the proverbial whatnot out of Bonecrusher and all I could do was call myself a mental retard.

And then something landed on me.

When the box fell on my feet I'm not going to lie, I screamed. Just a little scream. Not one of those earsplitting glass shattering shrieks of terror that I can let rip on occasion. It was just a little _yeep_! The ones you make when you're startled by something but are lucky enough to keep your mouth shut so that no one else will hear you.

It took me about half a second to realize that it had fallen off the top shelf, which was so high that I couldn't even reach it on tip-toe. It was a Transformers box, one of those bigger ones that housed one of the collectable toys that everyone was always after. I figured that it would have been rude of me to just walk away so I picked up the box and tried to find an empty spot to put the toy with the rest of his Decepticon buddies but all of the shelves were packed and the one that the box had fallen from was too high for me to reach.

"Now where do you belong?" I looked down at the box, figuring that it was another Barricade but instead of seeing the black and white cop car all I saw was one big black truck.

It was Ironhide!

"No way." I couldn't believe it. Okay this wasn't the discovery of a lifetime here but what were the chances that the last Ironhide toy was going to fall right on top of me from a mountain of toys? Well he was no Optimus but he was still an Autobot and after now spending a good twenty minutes in the store I wasn't about to leave empty handed. I had the last Ironhide in my hands and he was coming home with me.

I noticed that the box looked like it had gone through a war. It was held shut with a ton of clear tape and the clear plastic front was all scratched and dented. I guess there had been a bunch of kids who fought over the toy and ruined the packaging. Kids always do stupid stuff like that. I worried that the truck inside would have been damaged but after looking it over from every angle I saw that it was untouched. The plastic wires were still wrapped around the hood and cab of the plastic Topkick and held it in place. Looks like the kids never got a chance to utterly destroy the toy so in the spirit of charity I decided that I would cough up thirty dollars and bring this old soldier home. If I didn't buy him then who would? Especially when it was housed in such a battered box.

I kept saying that to myself in order to justify spending money I barely had on a kid's toy as I brought the Ironhide toy up to the open cash register and plunked it down in front of the cashier.

She gave me an uncertain look as she eyed the toy and then me but I just gave her a sheepish smile and shrugged.

"It's for my little brother. I promised I'd get him one." That seemed to be good enough for her as she went about scanning the barcode into her till. She didn't have to know that I didn't have a little brother.

I handed her my debit card and she rang me up. It honestly hurt to punch in my PIN number because I knew that once I got that month's bank statement I was going to cry. I had just spent over three hundred big ones on an Ibanez guitar and now I was paying for a useless child's toy when I should have been saving my hard earned cash. Ironhide wasn't even my favorite Autobot. That title was reserved for Rattrap and Prime. Hey I'm more of a Beast Wars girl so get over it.

And so with that the cashier handed me my receipt and the plastic bag with the toy in it. I didn't even look at her as I booted it out of that store, keeping my head low so that no one in the parking lot would get a clear look at my face. It honestly felt like I had walked into an Adult Film store and bought myself porn or something. An adult like myself buying toys? Nerdy boy toys? God, how low could I go?

Not low enough as it now seems.

I hurried to the Vin and tossed the toy onto the passenger seat and quickly buckled in and sped off towards home while the Arrival of the Autobots song played on the stereo. I never get tired of listening to that song. With the deep chords from the bass and the singing of cellos, it's as moving and inspirational as Beethoven's 5th.

I was actually ahhhing along with the vocals as I pulled up into my driveway and when I put the Vin in park I had a serious brain wave. I still can't believe that it didn't hit me before hand. I mean, all the signs were there, why didn't I realized what I was getting into before I went ahead and bought that damn toy.

You see the thing that struck me as really odd was that the voice. The one I had heard was a Texan's voice. Okay nothing big and scary right? We all know that the original Ironhide was voiced by Peter Cullen and he gave the character a distinctive western drawl. Yet in the film Ironhide comes off as sounding like a big brassy Brit instead of a bow-legged cowboy.

But that wasn't the half of it. I had seen the Transformers movie enough times to recite the lines in my sleep and sure the lines that I had heard were Ironhide's. Who else would go on about his cannons? But those lines were spoken near the middle of the film in that classic scene when all the Autobots show up and transform for the first time and look like God's gift to automotive kind.

Yet I had watched Optimus beat the energonic snot out of a Decepticon. That happened at the end of the movie.

So if the film wasn't what had said those words…then who did?


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey Sportsfans!**

**Oh man you guys are amazing! I didn't know that so many people would actually enjoy a Transformer toy story. Needless to say I'm thrilled. Yes I will be completing this story because I'm afraid Ironhide will bash me one if I don't. The guy's tempermental...I think someone needs therapy. But here's chapter two and I hope I did you guys justice. **

**Happy Reading!**

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_Help, I need somebody,  
Help, not just anybody,  
Help, you know I need someone, _

_**HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!**_

Oh my god. I was gonna die. I knew I was gonna die. It was inevitable. I felt like freaking Wile E. Coyote in one of those Warner Bros. sketches when he tries to blow up the Roadrunner only to have it backfire. Oh yeah, I was so totally freefalling down the Grand Canyon and waving my little "help me" sign for all I was worth cause I knew once I hit that bottom….it was gonna hurt.

I got home right and I raced up to my room and slammed, locked and barricaded my bedroom door to keep my snooping mother out for as long as possible. But like all moms on this planet, mine has supernatural powers and supersonic hearing is one of them.

"Where did you go? What's in that bag!"

I swear to you I had hugged Ironhide's battered box to my chest and had wrapped my jacket around it in order to muffle the sound of rustling plastic so that my mother wouldn't be able to hear anything. But like always, my plan was foiled by Supermom.

"Nothing! Just a book I bought at Chapters about the Beatles. Need it for my essay." Okay I know that was a lame excuse but I panicked! If Mom found out that I had just coughed up over 30 bucks for a toy, she'd kill me. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. I really do.

But anyways, she wasn't convinced and I knew she wasn't convinced but before she could start nagging from down in the kitchen I slapped on a Beatles CD and blasted it. It helped to drown out the sound of my mother's ceaseless voice and I could finally think again.

_What the hell was I thinking?_

"Ohhhh man. How am I gonna hide you?" I asked the box as I threw down my purse and jacket while looking wildly around my cluttered and uber messy room. Piles upon piles of near-exploding binders and tottering mountains of textbooks as far as the eye could see but even in all of this clutter there was no spot big enough to hide Ironhide's box. I knew that come tomorrow afternoon my mother will have snooped around my room to try to find what I had smuggled into the house. Nothing is safe from Supermom. Not even my Visa bills. But I'm not gonna get into that. I don't want to further scar you for life.

Okay, first thing was first. Get rid of the evidence. If worse came to worse and Mom got ahold of the box I can always say that it had been on sale, reduced price due to being damaged. And if I didn't have the bill there was no way that she could cross reference to see if my story was true. I'm a genius I know. So I grabbed the bill out of the plastic bag and tore it to pieces. Then I took those pieces and hacked them to even smaller pieces with a pair of scissors. Than I took the now confettified Toys R Us bill and flushed the it down the toilet. There was no way in hell that my mother was ever going to be able to find it. After years of flushing away Brussel sprouts, rapini and lettuce, I had become a champion of the dash and flush. I'm sure that there are many of you who will agree with me that when it comes to getting rid of unwanted nasty food the dash and flush is the best way to go without getting caught.

So problem one was solved. I was safe…for now.

The next problem came with the actual box. It was bigger than a shoe box and I knew I couldn't stuff it in my closet. I didn't even dare to open my closet for fear of being crushed under an avalanche of miscellaneous objects that where just waiting to come crashing down on my head. So I had to think of something else and fast. I still had that damn Beatles essay to do.

"H'okay. Let's see what you can do." I know I was talking to the box. Don't ask.

After hacking away at the box with my scissors I finally managed to free the shiny black Topkick truck. I was surprised at how hard it was to get him out of his packaging. Jeez man if those twist ties got any tighter I was gonna need to use my dad's pliers to unwind them. That alone should have raised a few red warning flags in my mind but I was too busy oogling over my new Transformer to pay attention.

I actually had my own Ironhide and he was cool. Okay he wasn't Prime but hey, he was big and black and looked totally bad-ass. And that was only his truck form.

Then came the hard part.

I remember glancing at my digital clock radio to check the time. It was getting late and I really really needed to get back to my essay but I wanted to see what he looked like in robot form. Hey you never know the toy makers could have designed him wrong or he could have been missing a piece. I had to make sure. And an hour later I was nowhere close to seeing him in his full mode.

Let's be honest. I've never had a Transformer toy in my life. Like I said before Transformers are for guys. At least that's what I thought while growing up. So it just goes to show how inept I am at putting together a Transformer. I'm not kidding, I couldn't get him to morph properly. It was like he didn't want to be bent all out of shape and twisted upright. Trying to get the trunk of the truck to split apart took me fifteen freaking minutes. I was scared I was going to break something. I always break things. But I didn't want to accidentally tear off a piece or anything cause that would not only be a total waste of money, it would just be sad.

So on I struggled and an hour later I kinda sorta got him looking like he does in the movie. One problem though….his upper half was still facing the wrong way. Okay whoever designed this thing clearly had no idea how hard it would be for a morph-handicap like myself to figure out how to put together a Transformer. Or maybe the designers designed him to be that way in order to get us regular shmoes to give up and admit defeat. Clearly I was fighting a loosing battle.

So what did I do? I put the toy on my bed and Googled him. Thank god for Wikipedia.

At this point the essay was long forgotten as I went about searching the web for anything that could help me figure out the mystery of his warped posture and after a good fifteen minutes of double clicking and muttered threats I finally found a YouTube video that demonstrated how to put Ironhide together. The guy in the video did it in 10 seconds. Oh I timed it. Here I was, an hour later and still no success and this guy, Botluver or whatever his username was, did it in 10 seconds flat. How sad is that? Honestly.

Yet now I knew what I had done wrong and still determined to get Ironhide in his proper upright standing position I picked him up and carefully grabbed his upper half with my right hand and his legs with my left. Taking a deep breath, I waited for a second.

"Please, please, please don't break." I actually prayed that I wouldn't tear him in half before I squeezed and wrenched his little robot body in two different directions.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! GET YER HANDS OFF ME!"

_HOLY CRAPOLLA! _

You don't need me to tell you all the details to figure out what happened next.

If there is one thing you should know about me it's that it is never ever was to sneak up on me and scare me cause I will do one out of two things or sometimes both. One, I will scream so loud that glass actually does crack. Two, I will suddenly start running around with arms and legs flailing like a crazy person.

Right then I did both.

"AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" I let out a shriek that would have put the Nazguls in Lord of the Rings to shame while I instinctively whipped Ironhide as far away from me as I could as I bolted for the door in a mad panic. I remember hearing a distinctive crunch sound right before I slammed the door shut and flew down the stairs like a bat out of hell, still screaming.

"What! What! Oh my god! Sam! Get up here!" Like the champ she is Supermom came flying out of the kitchen with a newspaper in one hand just as I landed on the second floor. Two seconds later my father came charging up from his office in the basement and the house shook a bit as he tripped over the last step and grabbed onto the banister to keep him from face planting on the tilted floor

"What is it! What's wrong!" Both Mom and Dad yelled at me at the same time and I managed to stop screaming long enough to realize that I couldn't tell them that I had heard my new toy speak because then that would mean admitting that I had gone out and bought an actual toy with my non-existent money.

I had to think fast.

"Spider! Landed on me! Spider!" I dramatically pointed at my closed door and shook my finger like Lady Macbeth in an overly-done Stratford festival performance of _Macbeth._ Talk about hamming it up. Oy!

And yet my parents bought it. 12 years of acting lessons finally paid off for once.

"A spider?" My dad snorted and a second later he shoved a fly swatter in my hand. "I swear to God I'm moving out. All this commotion for a spider? What the heck is wrong with you? She get's this from your side of the family."

Well mom wasn't all to thrilled about that response and before I could say "evil possessed toy" my parents launched themselves into a fully-fledged argument, complete with battle cries, flaming arrows and battering rams. Yeah my parents number one hobby is trying to out-argue one another. We're Italian. What can ya do?

I didn't stick around to become collateral damage. Between facing a talking toy that may or may not be sent from Hell or standing besides my parents in an all-out-no-gloves smack-down session, I'd take on the toy any day. But first, I was going to ring up the cavalry. Luckily my cell phone was on the stairs where I had left it earlier so I had no problems with hitting the speed dial button and calling up Anthony the Great, my sister's boyfriend and soon-to-be fiancé.

"What?"

First thing out of my mouth was what. I knew I caught him at a bad time.

"Anth! Anth! Omg! Anth! It's alive! I bought a toy and it's alive! It yelled at me!"

"I'm watching the Sporano's. I'll call you back."

Click.

Yeah my one chance of survival just hung up on me. Yet I knew better than to call Anthony when he was watching the Sopranos. Even my sister didn't dare call him while he was watching the Sopranos. The Sporanos was Anthony time. End of story.

But Anthony was the only person I knew who was a complete Transformer freak. He was the one that got me hooked on the Transformers movie in the first place. Stupid Anthony. This was all his fault!

"I thought you had an essay to write!"

I could always count on mom to drag be into an argument that I had nothing to do with. Now I had no choice but to go back into my room.

"If I die this is all your fault." I muttered under my breath as I clenched the fly swatter in my right hand and cautiously turned the doorknob and cracked open my door. Okay so far so good. Nothing came flying at me so I assumed it was safe to stick my head in. And then the rest of me stepped into my bedroom. I barely got past my bed before the door slammed shut behind me and low and behold the pint sized horror toy was standing behind it, cannons raised and aimed right at me.

"Identify yerself human!"

Identify myself? Oh did I ever.

"DIE DEMON TOY FROM HELL! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!"

_Swish! Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack! Whack! Smack! Swat! Smack!_

The fly swatter was everywhere at once as I let loose and started swatting away at Ironhide. I don't think he expected a sudden attack because the fly swatter ended up kicking his plastic butt. Hey I can be damn deadly with that thing when provoked. He was lucky I wasn't holding a wooden spoon or else he would have ended up in pieces. Dozens of little pieces. Luckily for him flimsy plastic doesn't kill but he sure got the beating of his robotic life.

"Oh fer the love of Prime."

I think that's what he said before he blacked out but I really can't be sure. I was too busy yodeling my Xena war cry as I swatted him around my room like an oversize golf ball until I was sure he had stopped moving. I think what really knocked him out wasn't my sick fly swatting skills but the fact that he crashed headfirst into my massive bookshelf and knocked my Sting replica off the shelf. Needless to say the heavy prop replica landed right on top of him. That had to have hurt.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey Folks!**

**Okay I wrote this at 3 in the morning so I apologize for any grammer errors or spelling mistakes. I'll fix em later when I get the chance. As for writing this chapter...well Ironhide wouldn't leave me alone all day so the only way I was going to get to sleep was to write this thing and make him happy. Honestly, sometimes Autobots can be so touchy (chuckle).**

**Happy Reading**

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So yeah, now I had an unconscious robot to deal with as well as an essay that still refused to write itself. I swear with all the technological do-dads that we have today you think that Bill Gates would have invented a self-typing computer that would simply do your homework for you. I mean, is that too much to ask for? Cha!

The time was 12:23 am.

Supermom and Daddy Dearest had finally decided that right then would have been a great time to go to sleep. And by sleep I don't mean one of those "goodnight sweetheart see you in the morning" kind of snooze routines. I'm talking about the "Did you put the car inside" argument that you get from behind two sets of closed doors while your parents grumble in the dead of night as they try to make themselves somewhat comfortable on a mattress that had died about six years earlier but had not been replaced because your parents are too cheap to just spend the cash on a new one. Heaven forbid they should have a decent mattress! They might just wake up cheerful for once. I swear if that ever happened in this house Hell would freeze over.

I made sure that I kept my door locked and I thanked the teen gods for convincing my father to install a doorknob with a lock all those years ago. It was times like this that the little flimsy lock was actually useful. Why? Well it was easy to pick from the other side but on my side you needed thumbs to work it and there was no way in hell that a foot tall robot was ever going to be able to turn that lock.

Speaking of said robot I had made sure that he was secured before I even attempted to go near my computer. There was no way that I was going to sleep that night. I was too damn wired and I hadn't had a shot of caffeine in hours. But then again I still wasn't going to work on that essay. Honestly how could I think of grades at a time like this? Hellooooo! Talking robot that has just threatened me seemed a bit more important right then.

So with Ironhide trussed up like a pig at Thanksgiving…yes I said pig. We have pig as well as turkey on Thanksgiving and I gotta say procetta tastes a hell of a lot better than dried out bird but that's way off topic. Again I'm Italian so my culinary tastes may differ from yours.

So I had strung him up by his arms between the leg of my computer table and my smaller bookshelf with two grey shoelaces that I had unearthed from my desk drawer. Gotta love Sketchers shoes and the extra laces that they give you. I always knew that they would come in handy some day.

And just for added safety I took away his blue plastic cannon bits and stuffed them in one of my old black socks and hid that sock in the furthest corner of my pyjama drawer, right behind the red lace lingerie I bought myself for my 22nd birthday. It was the safest place in my room. Why? Because if my mother couldn't find my "secret stash of sexyback contraband" in my pj drawer then there was no way a robot would be able to find it either. And plus I would pay to see anyone try to dig their way through five layers of old flannel, thongs and frilly bras. Plus, the whip alone would scare them away.

Wait….forget I said that.

Oh god, I'm ranting. See I always rant when I'm nervous. Always. Ranting is a sacred art in my family and that is something that Ironhide learned the hard way because the first thing he heard when he came to was me having a fully fledged argument with myself. It kinda went like this as far as I can remember.

_Oh crap! What am I gonna do now?_

Do? There is no do! I'm so screwed.

_Ya don't think I know this? I only have two pages of the essay done and I have two days to finish it! I don't even have all of my sources yet!_

Forget the essay! What about the toy?

_Oh crap! That's right. I never should have bought that thing. Why why why did I buy it?_

Mom's gonna kill me when she sees it. Remember what happened when she found the battle axe?

_How the hell was I supposed to know that she was going to do a massive cleaning of my room while I was in Montreal? Had I known that I would never have hidden it under my bed._

Yeah well at least I wasn't in the house when she found it.

_But dad was…and he was the one who bought it._

Yeah and he's still twitching because of it.

_Ohhhhhhh I'm sooooooooo screwed! Why does this always happen to me?_

I don't know. I'm special.

_Oh yeah, thanks a lot._

You're welcome. About the toy?

_I don't know! Should I throw it out?_

Will it stay out?

_Something tells me no._

Okay…what about a hammer?

_What about it?_

Bash it with a hammer. That'll stop it.

_Oh yeah. I'll just destroy thirty bucks just like that._

Well I've done worse with my computer.

_Yeah but that was the computer's fault. What about duck tape?_

"What about duck tape?"

I'm not ashamed to say that I jumped just a little bit. Here I was, minding my own business as I argued with myself and then all of a sudden another voice spoke up. For a second I thought I was going loony tunes and hearing voices in my head but when the computer table started to rattle I know that _It_ was awake. If you can call it awake. Cause it's made of plastic and is a toy so I don't know if transformers can even sleep. I'm still working on that.

"Huh?" I looked around wildly for some sort of weapon that I could use in self defence just in case the shoelaces didn't hold up but all of my weapons were on the side of the room that Ironhide was on. All I had at easy reach was Luther, my wolf puppet, and a dragon pillow.

Scary I know.

But to a foot tall plastic robot a dragon pillow could be considered somewhat intimidating. After all, I did have the ability to smother him if need me but Luther however wouldn't have helped at all. I'm mean, c'mon, he's a puppet. So I grabbed the pillow and tried to look somewhat intimidating with it.

"Owww my joints. I think ya twisted somethin' that had no darn right to be twisted."

"And you'll get more of where that came from if you ever try to threaten me again!" This I said from the relative safety of my twin bed as I stood on it and glared across the room. What? I was being cautious!

"Threaten you? You were the one threatenin' me!"

"Nu uh! Other way around tiny! You….you point those plastic thingies at me. I had every right!"

"You were tryin' ta twist me in half!"

"I was trying to put you together!"

"Well no one asked you to!"

"Well I didn't have to ask cause I bought you therefore I can do whatever I like with you because you're mine! And you shouldn't even be talking!"

"Bought me? Me? Untie me and we'll see who bought who!"

"HA! No way in hell am I letting you run around this room. You'll do something stupid and I'll have to kill you."

Okay….that was a bad thing to say. Word from someone who now knows this. Never ever threaten an Autobot with his life while he's tied up between a printer and a hardcover copy of _The Dictionary of Mythology_.

"Kill me?"

I swear Ironhide went from frustrated to killer Dirty Harry Clint Eastwood in like two seconds flat.

"Is that what yer up to?"

Uh oh.

Before I could answer him and try to explain that it was a figure of speech, sort of, Ironhide managed to get himself onto his feet and did something I never thought a foot tall toy could do. He grabbed hold of the shoelace shackles and kinda went a little…um…spastic?

Basically he pulled a King Kong and almost knocked over a full bookshelf while he sent my industrial style desk lamp flying.

"C'mon then! Try and get me! I'll send ya to the Pit before you ever knew what hit ya!"

Ohhhh yeah. He was pissed.

Well, could you blame him? I mean now that I think about it I could have handled the situation a bit better. Here he was in a place that he didn't know, surrounded by things that made him feel like an ant, which is funny because usually Autobots are huge and this was a complete 180 for him, and here I was bashing him around with a fly swatter, tying him up with string and threatening his life, err spark.

"No! Stop that! Don't!" All I could do was stand there and watch as he yanked and tugged with everything he had. I honestly heard his plastic joints creak for a moment before the weight of the bookshelf proved to be too much for him and he flipped backwards just as my battered copy of _Watership Down_ tumbled off the shelf and landed about 8 centimetres from his head. I swear I saw him flinch.

"C'mon human. I ain't afraid of ya. Bring it!"

This was coming of a toy that almost knocked over an entire bookshelf on sheer willpower alone. Like hell was I going go near him!

"Are you finished yet?"

"Not even close."

"Ya well I'm not going to "bring it" and I'm not going to kill you so will you stop with the feats of strength act before I bash you one? I'm sure we can work something out reasonably."

He didn't answer me right away and I could just tell that he was glaring at me from way down there on the floor. It was kind of hard to see his eyes over the tilted shoulder plates that did nothing more than hide most of his head from view. I knew that Ironhide was a weapons specialist and that made him highly intelligent in my books. So if he was smart he would know a way out when he heard one. Right?

"What do you suggest?"

Okay I didn't see that one coming.

"Umm. Well. I'll come down there and we'll talk. Just talk. And maybe I can figure out why you're walking and talking when you should be a motionless action figure."

"How about you untie me and then we'll talk."

I could see those gears in his head turning and I wasn't born yesterday so I obviously said no.

"Ah no. What's to stop you from killing me in my sleep?"

"What's to stop you from killing me in mine?"

"Uh you're plastic! You don't sleep."

"That's what you think."

Grrrrrr. This was just the beginning of a long and arduous and not to mention frustrating truce. Ya give a bot an inch and he'll take a mile. I swear Ironhide has to be one of the most stubborn robots ever created because this little ring around the rosy routine continued for a good fifteen minutes as we both tried to get to a common ground that would put either of us in some sort of advantage. So after fifteen minutes we had ended up right back where we started.

"Okay enough of this already! It's late! I'm tired! I have an essay to write and you're really starting to annoy me. How about we work on names okay? Can you handle that? Or do I have to duck tape you to the floor just to shut you up?"

"I'd like to see you try." He actually growled at me as he sat up and tugged at his bonds. Thankfully the shoelaces remained tied and tight.

"Enough with the macho man act. Who do you think you are? Rambo?" I just rolled my eyes. By then I was sitting on the bed, the pillow long forgotten as I took off my glasses and massaged my eyes.

"Rambo? What the heck is Rambo?"

Now that I found surprising. I always though that Ironhide was the Transformer equivalent to Sylvester Stallone. Beefy, likes big things that go boom, deep voice and damn stubborn, I wondered why he never heard of Rambo before. Well that was easy to figure out. After being stuck in Toys R Us for months on end all he had to look at was the My Little Pony display that was right across from the Transformer one and it was highly unlikely that Toys R Us ever carried a Rambo doll. So his knowledge of action movie heroes was next to nothing.

"Rambo is a who, not a what." I sighed. Well at least I managed to divert his attention onto something else that didn't require bodily threats. "Anyways my name isn't human. I'm Sarah. With an H. I hate it when people spell it without an H."

"Sarah huh? And what kind of name is that?"

"I don't know. I didn't pick it. It's what I got stuck with. Personally I prefer Cat Lady but…," I just shrugged. I could tell that he was slightly confused but I left it at that. "And you're Ironhide right?"

"How did ya know that?"

If he could narrow his eyes I'm sure he would have. So very carefully I got off my bed and went over to where his box lay scattered among the various Beatles books on the floor. I kept watching him from the corner of my eye as I picked up the box and went as close to him as I dared.

"Because it says so right here on the box." I made sure that I didn't make any sudden movements as I slowly placed his box down in front of him and scooted back a bit. I picked up one of my textbooks and pretended to flip through it as I waited for him to say something. Strangely enough he didn't say anything for a while as he studied the box. Maybe he was in shock or maybe he was trying to wrap his circuits around the idea of being free of his box but whatever it was that was going on in his head he kept it to himself.

"Well ain't this just Prime."

My head jerked up as I quickly opened my eyes and blinked a few times. I guess I must have started to nod off because when I glanced at the clock on my CD player it read 1:17am.

"What is?" I asked as I stretched and gave my bed a look of longing.

"This." He nudged the box with his foot and looked at me. "I got no memory of ever being in that thing. One minute I was doin' recon and the next thing I know I'm being attacked by a giant. This is getting' stranger by the minute and I don't know what to think."

"Yeah well neither do I and I'm going to conk out in a second if we keep this up. Tell you what. If I untie you, you have to swear that you won't do anything stupid, like try to kill me or leave this room. Because if my parents see you they'll turn you into a junk heap and then I'll get yelled at. Truce?" I know it was a bit sudden and I still didn't trust him but I was really tired and my bed looked way inviting than the floor. I could tell that Ironhide was also thinking the same thing because he kept on looking up over my shoulder and flexing his joints.

He waited a moment before he nodded his head and held up his arms so that I could untie the double knots that I had tied around his plastic wrists.

"Truce."

We both gave each other the "eagle eye" as I inched forward and carefully started to untie him. It took be a minute to get him free because I had tied those knots really tight and since I bite my nails to the quick, it was hard going for my fingers. But in the end I managed to set him free, ignoring his grumblings as I did so.

"Well I'm going to bed because I have to wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. And you mister are sleeping on the floor." I didn't bother looking at him as I literally turned off the lights and dove under the covers. In the sudden darkness I heard him curse loudly as he accidentally bumped into a tower of books that he couldn't see and I had to stuff my hand halfway down my throat to keep from giggling out loud.

"Sleep on the floor? There ain't no floor to sleep on!"

Jeez for a plastic robot he could sure be picky. But feeling sorry for him, slightly, I grabbed my dragon pillow and tossed it in his general direction.

"Oh. Duck!"

Too late.

"Oof!"

I winced as I heard the pillow knock him over but since I hadn't thrown it that hard it hadn't hurt him. At least I think it didn't.

"Sorry."

"Sorry huh? Well you can take your sorry and…"

I just cut him off right there because I honestly didn't want to hear it.

"Night Ironhide. And shut up."

All I got in response was a deep "harrumph" before everything went quiet. I don't think either of us got much sleep that night. Well I know I didn't. I kept waking up every half an hour with the feeling that something was watching me. And get this. In the morning I discovered the dragon pillow on the foot of my bed with Ironhide sprawled on it dead to the world. How the heck he managed to drag that thing up on my bed was beyond me but at least I knew then that it wasn't all a dream and that I wasn't crazy.

Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better for me to actually be crazy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Heyo Sportsfans!**

**Long time no see! Sorry about the lay-up in the story. Many things have been happening in reality land. Ironhide and I are glad to be back and hope you enjoy this next chapter!**

**Happy Reading.**

* * *

_**REEEEEEEE! REEEEE! REEEEEEE! REEEEEEE! ERRRRRR!! ERRRR!!**_

Oh fuck it.

Snooze.

Snooze…..where the hell…snooze…..

_**ERRRRRR! ERRRRR! ERRRRRRRRR!**_

_BAM!_

Thank god for the snooze button.

"Five….minutes….more…sleep…" _Slort. Snore._

My pillow never felt so good and I didn't object to sleeping in for another five sacred minutes. Mmmmmm soooooo tired. Soooooo comfy.

Mmmmmmmmm. Wha? I felt feet on me.

"Shadow…off. Stop it. Leave me lone. Sha_dow_. Stoooooooop. Wanna sleep. Stooooooop it."

God my cat can be so flipping annoying at the crack of dawn. He won't sleep on my bed because it's too small for the both of us and he prefers having a bed all to himself but he's not above coming into my room at daybreak and waking me up. If the food bowl isn't in front of him before 7:15 there will be issues.

"Stop iiiiiiiiit."

The feet continued to walk their way up my leg and onto my back as I hid my head under the pillows, refusing to wake up just yet. If I had to wake up that meant I had one less day until the essay was due. Nu uh. I was sleeping in. Reality could wait.

No, on second thought, it couldn't.

"Rise n' Shine!"

Huh?

_**REEEEEEE! REEEEE! REEEEEE! ERRRRR! ERRRRR! ERRRRRR!**_

Damn it! When I hit snooze stay snoozed!

"Ah shut up."

If only my alarm clock had stayed quite. If only.

**Whack! Crrrrrrrack!**

"Wha??"

I hauled my head from under my nest of pillows and one really big comforter and blinked like a dopey owl because I lacked the clear vision that my glasses provide me with. My hand fumbled around for a bit on a mound of novels as I tried to find my glasses and it took me a second to realize that they had somehow ended up on the floor. How, I did not know but thankfully the lenses weren't scratched because if they had been, there would have been hell to pay.

"What time is it?" I muttered and winced at the horrid stink that came off my words. Gah! Morning Dragon Breath!

"Time fer you to start answering some questions."

"Oh very funny dad. But seriously, what time is it? I gotta go to work today and I…"

"Define Dad."

Okay that got my attention. Kinda.

I looked down at the table that housed my alarm clock only to see that said clock was no longer in working order. It looked like an elephant had stomped on it or something. The clear plastic part where the numbers used to be was cracked in three placed and the green plastic body was smushed beyond help. Smushed I tell you, smushed!

"Wha? Bu? Huh?"

"Speak English girl. I don't speak Swahili."

Swa what?

"Huh?"

There was a funny looking man standing on my shoulders. I had to crane my head to the side to see him. He looked funny though, all odd angles and pointy ends and had these two really bright blue eyes that were kinda pretty. Only he didn't look too happy. In fact he looked kinda pissed.

"Cannons."

I just blinked. What cannons? I didn't hear any cannons. Man was I still dreaming? I had to have been. Talk about funky town.

The little man's eyes seemed to narrow and I thought I heard him grinding his jaw as he marched over my shoulders and jumped onto one of my pillows so that he was standing right in front of my face.

"Where. Are. My. Cannons?"

"Your cannons? I dunno. Ask mom. Laura probably took them." I blinked again before I rolled over onto my side and faced the wall.

God I am so not a morning person. There is a good reason why I usually sleep in until 11 o'clock because my brain, it no function like normal people's brains. I don't mentally wake up until around 2 in the afternoon so it usually takes me a good ten minutes to get started in the morning. I'm not even human until after 9 and during the major essay/exam period of the year I usually communicate through grunts and growls. The fact that I managed to speak words was something to be marveled at, even though it took me a good few minutes to realize just what was going on.

His cannons! _Toy, Beatles, alive, robot, essay not finished, toy box still on the floor, shoelaces, work shift at 9, robot that speaks, essay due_, all these thoughts exploded in my brain like a million fireworks and jolted me back into reality land. This wasn't a dream! My essay still wasn't finished and I had to work at 9! HOLY SHIT!

"WHAT TIME IS IT?"

Ever heard the saying off like a shot? Now just imagine what it must look like when you fly out of your bed as if your ass was on fire and run around your room in a blind panic trying to find your watch in order to check to see if you still had enough time to put clothes on before your eight hour shift at work started. Now add on flailing limbs, really frizzy bed head hair and a small black robot flying across the room for the second time in 24 hours. Ya got all that? Good. That's exactly what happened when Supermom burst into my bedroom with an almighty slamming of the bedroom door.

"Do you know what time it is? What time do you have to go to work?"

I was in roadrunner autopilot mode as I ran around my room trying to find a pair of socks that matched and my black work pants that were hiding under a pile of unwashed jeans in some random corner. My black work shirts were hanging off various doorknobs and I quickly did the sniff test to see which one wasn't the least dirty before I ripped off my pajamas and threw everything on at the speed of light. Hey, what can I say? I move fast under pressure.

"Uh 9. 9 to 5 today. What time is it? Do I have a lunch? I'm taking the car. Where's my cell phone?" I rambled on as I did up the button of my dress pants and shoved my way past my mother and dove into the bathroom. I wrenched open the tap and scrubbed my face with my right hand while I tried to put toothpaste on my toothbrush with my left hand.

I was fully expecting my mother to start blasting me one about going to bed late and sleeping in and being late for work and for being lazy because I didn't make my lunch the night before and everything else she always nags about every day. It's like a ritual to her that she always has to do. But for some reason I didn't get it then. Instead I got something much worse.

"What is this? Did you buy this?"

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

The toothbrush was still in my mouth as I stuck my head out the bathroom door and saw the dented box that the Transformer had come in. Mentally I said a little prayer of thanks to whoever was listening on high for having given me the sense to destroy the receipt before hand.

"How much did you spend on this? You're buying toys now? I thought you had essays to write!"

And thus began to daily banshee wailing. I knew better than to answer her as she went into full mode Harpy and criticized the hell out of me and my "unnatural" behavior. Where was I getting the money for this? She thought that I was low on cash, which I was, and that I should be saving money to buy new clothes because I always wore black every day and that I shouldn't wear black because it makes me look not normal. Nag nag nag nag nag.

I quickly tuned her out as I brushed my teeth, rinsed, horked up a spit ball, and shoved my face in the towel before turning off the water and running back into my room with my mother hot on my heels.

"When you get back Dad's going to speak with you about this. Don't think you're getting off because you're not! And look at this room! You have to clean this room! And when was the last time you changed your sheets? Or washed your clothes? All you ever do is stay up and sit in front of that computer. You just wait until summer starts. I'm having Dad take away the Internet and then you'll see. Why do I always have to be the one cleaning around here. You just wait. You're going to start cleaning this house once school is over."

At this point not even Gandhi could have had the patience to deal with my mother.

"Oh shut up! I have to go! Get out of my way and stay out of my room!" I snarled as loud as I could in order to drown out my mother's voice as I stuffed my rather pathetic looking pink cell phone into its protective case and threw it into my overweight man bag that I slung over my shoulder. My hair was standing up in every direction and it made me look like some sort of geeky mad scientist but I didn't have time to attempt to tame the frizz. Instead I grabbed two scrunchies, booted it out of my bedroom and down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Supermom turned Olympic Champion of Nagdom stayed on the landing and continued to berate me about anything and everything she could think of that was wrong with me as I grabbed a peach and a bottle of water and shoved them into my man bag of a purse. I would just have to by my lunch on my break and that meant spending more money that I didn't have. God I have to stop spending period!

"I'll see you at five."

I didn't wait around to hear what else she had to say as I ran down another flight of stairs and into the hallway where all the shoes are kept. I shoved on my black Vans and had to tie up the laces before I left the house, least I trip over my own feet. It wouldn't be the first time. I slammed the back door on my way out and actually did trip over something black that was lying smack dab in the middle of my way.

"Elvis! MOVE!" I yelled at a scrawny black cat that was snoozing away in a patch of early morning sunlight. Elvis jumped to his feet and chased after me in hopes that I would give him a handful of Shadow's cat kibble but today I didn't have any on me. Hell I hadn't even had breakfast so that made two of us. Speaking of which just as I unearthed my keys and unlocked the Vininator, who should come running towards me but Moe the other stray cat that lived in my backyard. I swear I think those cats lay in wait for me every morning to make sure that they get fed but today was already turning out to be a bad day so what were two hungry strays?

"Sorry guys! I'll feed you when I get back!" If they understood me I'll never know.

I managed to pull out of the driveway without knocking over the garbage can and threw the SUV into drive. I floored it up to 40 km/h and took off to the bookstore that I work at for minimum wage. It was 8:53 and I had 7 minutes to get there, park, haul ass into the store and swipe before the punch clock hit 9. Could I make it? I didn't have much of a choice.

"Where the hell are you taking me?" Ironhide's head poked out of my purse just as I was attempting to make a left hand turn.

"GAH! You're real! AHHHH! CAR!" I swear to you that I double checked both ways to make sure that there was no one coming in my direction but suddenly out of nowhere this silver four door sedan blares his horn at me just as I make the left and I almost sideswiped him with the Vin's big ass of a trunk. I had a death grip on the steering wheel that made my knuckles turn white as I tried oh so hard not to start spazzing out in the middle of a major road.

"I almost hit that guy. Where did he come from? Did you see him? I didn't see him. He came out of nowhere. He wasn't there. Oh god I almost hit someone!" I wanted to start bawling right then and there but I had to get to work and I was already running behind.

"Keep driving." Ironhide growled as he untangled himself and tossed the black scrunchies back into the purse before he adjusted his joints and door panels. I wasn't going to argue with him. I had to get to work in one piece and it was 8:56. I had four minutes.

I watched the Transformer toy out of the corner of my eye as he climbed into the side door panel and hoisted himself put to the window by balancing on the arm rest thingy. He stared out the window and didn't say a word which was a good thing because I was still trying to come to grips with him actually being real and not a dream and the fact that I almost crashed my mother's car. With these thoughts running around in my head I made it into the plaza's parking lot and quickly found a parking spot. It was one of those double spots that you just drive through so that you can pull out later on instead of having to reverse and try not to hit the cars behind you.

"Okay you stay here and I have to go to work. Wait. I'm not leaving you in the car." I killed the ignition and grabbed the scrunchies. It took me all of five seconds to twist the snakes nest that is my hair into a bun and sighed over the forest of frizz that stuck out at every angle. "If I take you in with me you have to do exactly as I tell you. If you don't you'll never see your cannons again. Capish?"

I was running out of time and I had to think fast. Ironhide wanted his cannons right? Well if he did this one thing for me then he could have them back. Ironhide looked over his shoulder panel and fixed me with a glare. If he had been normal Autobot height and looked at me like that I would have peed myself silly but the effect wasn't the same when the bot's half the size of a ruler.

"I want my cannons back." He growled as he crossed his arms over his chest plates.

"I'll take that as a yes." I glanced at my watch. 8:58. I had two minutes! Not waiting on ceremony I grabbed Ironhide and shoved him into my purse before zippering it shut and got out of the car. I remembered to lock it before I half-ran half-walked into the Starbucks that is connected to the bookstore. The only way to get into the store I work at before it opens is through the Starbucks. Why? I have no idea.

I gave the barista's a half-wave as I wove between customers that were already lined up for their morning fix of five dollar coffee and squeezed myself between the barrier that separates our store from Starbucks. I tried to keep the purse from jostling around too much as I ran for the staff room before the opening manager could see me. It took me two tries to get the combination right on the damn door handle and I grabbed my punch card and swiped in before my feet stopped moving.

9:01.

I was one minute late. I was still in the safe zone.

"Git me out of this thing!" Ironhide attempted to free himself from the confines of my purse but since it was an urban version of the Mary Poppins bag he had a hard time battling it out with my massive wallet, a peach and three types of antacid bottles.

"Will you stop moving before you break something?" I made sure that the staff door was closed before I slung the purse onto the table and quickly unzipped the zipper. I reached in to lend Ironhide a hand but I guess he wasn't in the mood to be fondled. He snorted and muttered something under his breath as he shoved my hand away and worked his way out of the purse.

"You got enough junk in there to make a 'Con feel at home." He adjusted his shoulder plates and gave himself a good dusting off in an attempt to rid himself of the fine coating of crushed Tums that stuck to the hard to reach corners of his leg joints.

"Ya well, I need that junk." It was still too early to think of a decent comeback and I had to be out on the floor pronto so that the morning manager could see me and see that I was in the building and not somewhere else. I grabbed my work vest and put it on as I looked around the staff room for a place to hide the toy from prying eyes. Because I knew there was going to be prying eyes. Half the work staff were guys who were utter comic aficionados and Transformer fans. Bring in a toy and they would have a field day playing with it.

"Here. This is my locker. Stay in it until I get back during my break. Don't touch anything, don't move, don't even breathe. Just stay okay?" I grabbed my purse and had to use my shoulder to shove it into the tiny foot-wide rat hole that was my locker. Maybe Supermom was right. I really should consider getting a smaller purse.

Ironhide took one look at the locker and snorted.

"In there? Ha! There ain't even enough room to swing a mini con in there." He glanced around the room and eyed all of the towering cupboards and appliances. The vending machine was what caught his attention.

"But you have stay in there. What? You're going to spend your day out here? Hello? Are you even listening to me? Yo Robot!" I clapped my hands a few times to divert his attention back to me but he just ignored me. Freaking robot. Like I didn't have enough on my mind as it was.

"Ohhh this is not good." I took a deep breath as I watched him make his way to the end of the table and look down. To him, it was a long way down. I had to think fast because I didn't have the time to stand around and argue with him and I knew better than to shove him into the locker and lock it. Give him five minutes and he probably would have broken down the locker door.

Damn, how did Sam do it in the movie? Compromise? But that didn't work. And he had a bunch of Feds break into his house. Great.

"Fine. You don't want to go in the locker then you stay out here. But so help me god," I went around the table and knelt down in front of him so that we were eyelevel, "if you so much as move one little plastic joint all day I will take your cannons and shove them up a part of your robo anatomy that you never knew existed. You got that? Not one move."

I had my best game face on and did the whole "Sam Elliot" eagle eye stare to let him know just how serious I was. It was impossible to read him because he was made of plastic and facial expressions aren't exactly an Autobots strong point. My guess is that he wanted to deck me one right on the nose but seeing that I had his cannons and he didn't, he really didn't have much of a choice but to agree with me.

"I want my cannons."

"I know! You said that three times already. I get it. You'll get them back tonight just as long as you don't move and do as I say. Alright?"

Now I just had to figure out where I was going to put him. There was a Kiosk in the kid's section that I could keep him on but that wasn't a good idea. I worked in the kid's section, surrounded by kids. If I left him out there he'd get destroyed by the obnoxious rug rats that tore the place up every day when my back was turned. I had to settle for something else.

"Remember, you don't so much as move even if Megatron flies into the store and starts destroying books or something. You stay here." I didn't wait on ceremony. I just grabbed him from behind and plunked him down on the kitchenette counter beside the big black microwave that was in a serious need of a good cleaning.

"Do ya mind?" He really didn't like it when I grabbed him.

"Oh stop being such a baby."

"I am not bein' a baby."

"Yes your are."

"No I'm…"

"Shut up."

"Harrumph!"

"Yeah that's right. You "_harrumph"_ me. Real mature for a weapon's specialist."

I grabbed the roll of paper towel that sat beside the sink and ripped off a piece before folding it in half. I randomly scribbled down the first thing that came into my head.

_Hello,_

_My name is Ironhide. I am part of an expeditionary writing assignment…don't ask. So please…DO NOT TOUCH!_

_(You know I'm serious)_

_Sarah_

I stuck the message beside the microwave and pointed at it. Ironhide glanced at it for a moment, gave a robotic sigh and leaned against the side of the microwave.

"Stay." I was out of the staffroom before he could make any smart remarks.

Sure Ironhide wasn't happy about his predicament but he soon found out that it was a lot of fun to spy on my fellow employees. Throughout the day my bookstore compadres would go on their breaks without realizing that there was a robot toy watching their every move. Ironhide eaves dropped on phone calls and eyed reading material that no one had any right to know about but that's all I'll say on that matter.

I kept dashing on and off into the staffroom to make sure that Ironhide hadn't destroyed anything. At one point he was lounging against the black microwave reading one of the Superman comic books that Joe had left on the counter. He turned the page with his foot just as I opened the door.

"What are you doing?"

Ha ha! I had Ironhide with his pants down, so to speak, and quickly kicked the comic to the side.

"Erm ahh…nothing. Just inspecting this manual that one of the male workers left behind."

I had to pinch myself to keep from laughing. Did he just stutter?

"Inspecting huh?" I went over to the counter and picked up the comic book. "Never seen a comic before?"

"Is that what it is?"

"Yep. You know the Transfomers were originally cartoons in the 80's and that's kind of like a comic book. Same type of drawing."

I opened the comic to a random page and glanced at the drawings. Eh, I had seen better.

"Autobots are not cartoons."

Okay now he was back to being defensive and grouchy. So much for the comedic moment.

"Whatever. You okay? No one's been bothering you have they?" I glanced around the room to make sure that everything was as it should be. I love my coworker, I really do, but when it comes to guys and toys you can never be too careful.

"No but there were a few of your fellow humans who found your note quite amusing. I believe they think that you're crazy."

"Yeah well that's nothing new. That's what happens when you're a writer." Hey, it's true!

"Are all writer's insane?"

"No. Some are but we're just really creative."

"And yet your place of work promotes this insanity."

"No, the insanity is a result of being surrounded by moronic customers."

Wow. I was actually having a decent conversation with a toy. This was certainly a step up from our previous argue session and it would have gone on if Justine hadn't walked in.

"Were you talking to the toy?" Justine is one of the most laid-back and open-minded people that I know/work with but I think even she drew the line at talking to inanimate objects. How do I know this? Funny you should ask. She gave me this look that made me check to see if I had grown a second head.

"Uh yeah. I have to. It's for the assignment. I have to carry him around with me for a week and treat him as if he were alive. You know, kind of like the whole "Indian in the cupboard/small soldiers/ baby egg" thing. I better get an A on this thing. Umm…yeah.'' I smiled. One of those toothy Lilo and Stitch smiles that shows all teeth as you slowly back away to get out of an awkward conversation.

"Yeah. Well a kid just barfed in your section and Ferd wants you to clean it up."

And out she walked with an uber neutral expression on her face. Did she believe me? Eh, probably not. But there are worse things that she could have caught me doing. At least I think there are.

Now I'll fast forward a bit to the end of the shift. You really don't want to hear all the gory details about cleaning up kiddy puke off a carpet that needs to be ripped up and replaced. The fleas alone are enough to make you cringe. Oh yeah, there are fleas. Tiny ones that you can't even see. You get these itchy little bumps on your hands every time you sit on the floor and put things away that kids have thrown around while their parents just ignored them and read their magazines while drinking their double tall mocha choca vanilla bean soy latte frap with non-fat whip.

And they left the cups behind. Honestly, would it kill people to walk two steps and throw out their Starbucks cups in the garbage can that is there for the soul purpose of devouring Starbucks refuse?

Soooooooo, at the end of my shift a bunch of the guys ganged up in the staffroom and start playing with Ironhide while I was busy cleaning up the war-zone that was the kids section. Ohhh let me tell you, Ironhide made sure to let me know just how close he came to cracking skulls as they used him as a makeshift football and threw him around the room. When they got tired of that they tried to transform him back into his truck form but Ironhide would have none of it. No matter how hard they tried they couldn't move any of his parts.

You think that they would have stopped after that and left him alone right? As if! Since they couldn't have fun twisting him in every direction they decided to pull a "prank."

Yeah, I know.

It really didn't surprise me that a bunch of 20 something year old guys rigged Ironhide with a makeshift phallus and placed a racy magazine that was borderline porn in front of him so when I walked into the staffroom I did a double take. You know how guys think right? The longer the shlong the funnier it is.

Ah ha ha ha. Not funny.

The guys were smirking and I just rolled my eyes.

"Real mature."

For sure Ironhide wanted to shoot the guys who did this, with or without cannons, and I wanted to smack them upside the head. Instead I grabbed the plastic robot and wrapped my scarf around him in order to prevent him from moving before I stuffed him into my purse.

"Hey, he's an autobot. What do you expect? Those guys are supposed to be like 20 feet tall….we were just making him anatomically correct."

"Is that what you guys do with your GI Joes at home? What is with guy and their dicks? I swear if I could I'd stick all of you in drag and let you suffer that way."

"You wish."

They all did their manly "group smirk" and punched each other on the shoulder.

Was I supposed to be impressed by this? Bup.

"I would sleep with my eyes open tonight. You never know, an autobot might just try it."

"_Damn straight! When I get my hands on those kids I'm gonna…"_

The second they heard Ironhide's voice they all perked up. It was as if I had just ignited a light saber and did that "snap hiss" sound in a room full of Star Wars fans. Same effect. The geekdom came out in full force.

"That's Ironhide."

Blatant statement of the century guys. Noooo kidding!

"My cell phone, new ringtone."

Hallelujah for modern technology and bad cover lines! I shoved my hand into my purse and smacked Ironhide before I pulled out my pink phone. And I hate pink. I really do.

"Damn, missed call. Ah well. See you shmucks later."

It was high time that I got the heck out of there before something else happened.

"Have fun with your toy. _Ohhhhhh Ironhide. You have such big 'cannons'. I just love a bot with firepower._**"** Joe did a really bad girly imitation of my voice and that set off the rest of the Peanut gallery.

"Girls and their plastic toys." The guys exchange a look and start laughing.

"Funny! Very funny!" I was not amused and slammed the door behind me just as Ironhide piped up again.

"_I'll give you firepower!"_

I have no idea how anyone else in the store didn't hear him as I walked down the power aisle to the front doors. I could here him swearing like the trucker he was with every step I took. I kept my head down and walked as quickly as I could before I opened my purse and grabbed my car keys.

"You should've let me teach those adolescent pups a lesson!" First words out of his mouth. Not "Hi how are you? Thanks for saving me back there."

"Oh yeah. One foot tall robot against three really tall guys. That would have gone over well."

I opened the door and put my purse on the floor and got into the car. Ironhide kept grumbling to himself as I plunked him on passenger seat and buckled him in with the seat belt.

"What's this for?"

"So you stay put. I don't want to climbing all over the place while I'm driving. I already have enough problems driving as it is." I snapped on my own seat belt, did the "check all the mirrors twice" routine before I started the car. I always get nervous pulling out of a full parking spot. The Vin's so big that I always think I'm going to accidentally back into someone.

"I could have taken those guys."

"Probably. But I'm guessing that no one else is supposed to know that you can walk and talk right? Let's try going the incognito route shall we?"

I grabbed a random CD case and fed the cd into the stereo before I carefully inched the Vin forward and pulled out of my parking spot without killing anyone.

"Oh not this again!"

"Ironhide, I'm writing a Beatles essay. Which means I have to listen to said Beatles. If you don't like it then turn back into a truck or something." I cranked up the volume in order to drown out whatever else Ironhide had to complain about.

_Hey Jude don't make it bad,  
Take a sad song and make it better,  
Remember, to let her into your heart,  
Then you can start to make it better._

I started to sing along to the song as I idled at a stop sign. I can't sing for beans just so ya know. I honestly sound like a dying crow that's being strangled with barbwire and even though Ironhide is a mini plastic robot, even he could tell the difference between good and bad singing.

"Will you quit caterwaulin'? My hearin' receptors are gonna bust."

"Oh stop complaining. If I want to sing then I'm gonna. Singing for the hell of it is fun. You should try it sometime."

Some guy honked behind me as I made my left and just for that I made the turn slower than usual.

"I don't sing."

Oh really? I could have some fun with this.

"Coward."

That's right. I dropped the C-bomb on Ironhide.

"What?"

"You're a coward."

"I am NOT a coward."

"Yes you are."

"No I am not!"

"Then sing. I bet you've never even tried it before."

"No self-respective mech sings to the Beatles." He crossed his arms and glared at the dashboard.

"A little touchy aren't we?" I smiled just a little bit as I checked my mirrors to make sure there wasn't some shmuck trying to drive up my ass.

"I am not touchy."

"Then prove it. C'mon. The words are easy." I waited for the refrain before I started to sing again.

"_Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let her under your skin_…come on Ironhide. Pretend your singing to Chromia, or about her. You know if she were here now she'd be kicking your plastic butt for being such a wuss." I pointed out as I stopped at a red light. I always liked Chromia from the 80's show. I don't know what it is but female mechs always seemed to kick butt. Kinda like Xena. But only made of metal.

Ironhide turned his head and glared at me from over his shoulder hood. I grinned at him and drove on as the light turned green.

"C'mon. It's easy." I waited until the ending started before I started warbling. "_Na, na, na, na na na na. Na na na na_…"

I looked at him and waited.

"Hey Jude." He muttered quietly

"Alright. Now belt it!" Booyeah! Success!

I could just imagine Ironhide's wince as I turned up the stereo volume to the max and screeched along with it. C'mon, it's _Hey Jude_. Everyone does the _Na na na_. Admit it, so do you.

"_Naaaaaaaaaaa, na, na, na na na na. Na na na na. Hey Juuuuuude_."

I could hear Ironhide's deep Texas drawl as he started to sing a bit louder, thinking that I couldn't hear him over the sound of my own voice. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and I swear I saw one of plastic his feet tapping in time with the music.

As Paul started to solo on the _Judes_, I let out a YEOW that made Ironhide jump a bit.

"_Jude jude jude judy judy judy yeoooowwwwwwwww_!

"So this is how you entertain yourself when no one's around." He interrupted my solo screech-a-thon just as I was getting into it.

"Sometimes. There are only a few bands that I ever sing to because yeah, I can't sing. The Beatles are one of them." It was the truth and I have no problem admitting it.

"You are a strange person."

"Everyone says so."

_Yesterday_ started to play and we sat there in silence for a bit, just listening to Paul sing about how he longed for yesterday. Lost in the music I took a left instead of a right and drove right past my street.

Ironhide somehow noticed.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking the long way home. I had a shit day today. I'm gonna cruise for a bit. The essay isn't going anywhere."

For once Ironhide didn't contradict me. He just sat back as we drove along and didn't seem to mind that I played _Yesterday_ over again. I really like that song and in a way I think he did too. It felt nice.


End file.
